A/N: This piece of writing kind of represents me getting a chainsaw and showing that old-time nemesis Writer's Block who is boss. At least for now. It involved me swapping fandoms…who knows if I'll go back to Yu-gi-oh for a while, or ever. I'd love to finish HD, I really would. Hell, I just want to write stuff again…this is either a final gurgle before I sink below the surface of Writer's Block for good, or the start of a new era. Who knows?
To Seize the Moment
"What are you doing?"
Lelouch had been lying on the sofa for some time now - it was something he seemed to be doing a lot recently - yet for some reason today a comfortable position was eluding him. The zip of one of the cushions (red and white, second one along, just under his lower back) had been prodding him insistently for some time now, and he was fairly sure he had a corresponding pattern etched along his hip. Additionally - and this was also very important - the fool who had designed the sofa had managed to place little buttons along the back. After calculating their relative positions to each other and comparing it to the pattern of the sofa's material, he had concluded that their locations were infuriatingly random, presenting an unreadable enemy that emerged from underneath him at startlingly regular intervals. In short, the blasted thing was an ergonomic and aesthetic failure, serving as yet another sign of how low the world had fallen under the Britannian Empire. Such a crude piece of furniture would never have been permitted in Japan.
…Or so the pitiable rebels on the news would have him believe.
"I am currently locked in battle with this poorly-manufactured and unworthy enemy over the small matter of my personal comfort. But fear not, O brother of mine, for Lelouch Lamperouge will surely reduce this failure of a furniture to inflammable scraps of cheap material that not even a charity shop will accept."
He accompanied the speech with apparently essential twirling of hands and similar overly-grand gestures: the momentum and clear gusto with which he carried this out subsequently causing him to tumble from the sofa. Finding himself suddenly on the floor, and with a significantly bruised rear, he dropped the grand visage and chuckled despite, or possibly even at, himself.
"How the mighty have fallen, eh?"
The pun, despite being several levels lower in sophistication than what he generally aimed for, appeared to genuinely amuse him, if only for a moment.
"The trivial things, Rolo, are what save us in the end. It's only when you can't find any that it is a cause for concern."
The boy almost universally accepted as his brother appeared at a loss, seemingly uncertain as to how to greet this habitually abrupt change of mood. He defaulted to the safe role of bemused but unquestioningly adoring younger sibling and merely murmured, "Indeed".
It actually resembled the same blank tone of agreement in which a butler might be expected to utter "very good, Sir", without being required to have actually listened to anything that had just been said.
"So in a more candid response to your question, Rooloohh…." He rolled the sounds around with his tongue, just like Rolo had seen him twirl a chess piece in his hand, feeling the weight and potential.
"In short, I am lying on the sofa. Or was."
"Indeed," Rolo said again, this time with a hint of irony. Cautious assertion came now in the form of steering the conversation towards his own interests. He ventured cautiously: "…Can I join you?"
"Certainly, certainly."
The jovial tone ultimately signalled indifference, which Rolo decided, after a moment, that he didn't mind, because indifference was a kind of acceptance after all, if a thoughtless one. That kind of reflex acceptance was one which he always hurried to make use of, because it could so easily snap back the other way, like an elastic band in the face.
His older brother folded his feet underneath him - there went his afternoon nap - and shuffled further up the sofa. It was a three-seater, and he still took up two and a half seats, but Rolo sat at the other end without complaint. It seemed reasonable that an older brother would get the final say in how things were divided between them; indeed, this reminder of his older brother's superiority over him sent a thrill of delight through him.
"I take it you've finished your homework?" Lelouch was now in the process of systematically dismantling the cushion that had plagued him earlier - his hands worked briskly and methodically, seizing great clumps of stuffing in an act of ritual disembowelment.
"Yeah…" He timed the trailing-off note to perfection, making sure it conveyed just the right mix of hesitancy and reluctance.
Lelouche rolled his eyes dramatically, just as they both knew he would, and deigned, yet again, to offer what was clearly a much-needed lifeline.
"All right, I'll look over it with you later."
Rolo's whole expression lit up, to the point where his clearly overwhelmed gratitude even suggested over-acting. Ironically, this response was not at all feigned: certainly, Rolo experienced not an ounce of difficulty in completing his school assignments, due to the simple fact that in preparation for his role as replacement sibling he had been trained in everything that he would be learning in his upcoming school year. Showing this, however, was not at all in his interests. As well as arousing suspicion, it would take away a reason to be able to go to his new brother for help. It would take away those evenings of Lelouch standing over Rolo with a warm hand on his shoulder and a tone of friendly exasperation saying, "No, no, for quadratics it is minus b plus or minus everything that is being square rooted," or "Everything on this side has to equal zero, why can't you see?"
He would finally evict him from the chair so that he could write the answers in faster than Rolo would, reclining with lazy pride in his chair afterwards as if he were a prince and it were a throne. He could still recall the pattern of squeaks that the chair made as Lelouch rocked back and forth in it, and when Rolo thanked him and slipped back into the chair, he would find it still warm from his brother's body.
"Heh, no need to look like that."
Rolo blinked, his grip on time briefly loosened, as if he had been hit by his own Geass.
Lelouch was waving an arm dismissively, and the shadow arm on the wall behind him chased the metronome he was creating with it.
"It's what I'm supposed to do, right? As a brother, I mean."
The "brother" nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Fortunately, neither his natural self nor his younger-brother alter-ego were characterised by being particularly gregarious, and Lelouch just put the insufficient response down to his usual embarrassed reticence.
"T-Thanks," he managed at last. "I'd like that."
"Naturally. It's not as if I'm achieving anything meaningful at the moment anyway." LeLouch exhaled forcefully and sat up. "This life really isn't going anywhere."
His audience raised an eyebrow, cautiously inviting further explanation.
"There's just nothing of significance, nothing unique to my existence."
He was reaching full rhetorical flow now, and the sudden passion leaping into his voice was not something that Rolo's feeble agreements were going to dam or even slow.
"I know this self-questioning is clichéd, but nevertheless I feel as if I should have achieved something more than this by now…that Lelouch Lamperouge was born to oversee greater things than homework and school clubs. I should be out there changing the world, inciting uprising by the masses against this collective lethargy that they have sunk into…something so ambitious that it borders on absurd. Like…trying to create a country! Or…or building a private army so I can overthrow the monarchy! Great things, things that will carve my name into the tablet of history."
He slumped back into the sofa, which willingly swallowed him up so that his next sentence was semi-muffled by cushions.
"Of course, we all know how much talking about such things actually achieves: nothing, nada, zero."
Rolo shivered, and tried to think about homework. His brother noticed, naturally: despite the light-hearted persona used at school, Rolo was beginning to find that his brother missed almost nothing. Sometimes it scared him a little to think about what his brother might not have missed. Truly, there had been odd moments of weakness on Rolo's part, mostly at the beginning, where fears of creating inconsistencies with Lelouch's implanted memories of him threatened to warp his behaviour into something that might be considered un-brotherly - and how was he supposed to know what Lelouch expected from a brother anyway? Lelouch had been rendered as good as an only child by the emperor, and thus had no expectations of his siblings, past or present: and so Rolo could set those expectations himself. The new level of control had been bewildering: it had been a relief to establish Lelouch as someone to whom he habitually deferred to, so that the decision-making was transferred back to him as soon as possible, and he could get down to being ordered about by his new older brother in enthusiastic fashion.
Then his whole body was seized and restrained so absolutely that, for a moment, he panicked. But now this apparent gesture of reassurance was over, and Lelouch was ruffling his hair in a hearty, deliberately over the top manner, and saying, "Can't let you get cold, can we? People would say that I'm not taking care of you."
His grin belied at once his now clearly mock-anxious tone, causing Rolo's widened eyes to gradually resume their normal proportions.
"Yeah…" Rolo trailed off, feeling uncertain yet again of how he was expected to respond. It seemed at this moment a matter of deep regret that the market for books teaching you how to replace and impersonate someone's sibling was so small.
"It looked like I frightened you a bit there. Did Big Brother Lelouch scare his widdle bwoder?"
"Mmm…" He allowed himself a humbled nod.
"Silly thing. Seriously, though-" and here Lelouch leaned in confidentially - "if anyone actually does give you a reason to be afraid of them, you just come running to Big Ol' Lulu here. He'll save you."
His smile now was not entirely pleasant. "I'll kill anyone that hurts you, Rolo. And no, I'm not being heroic, or anything pitiful like that. I could kill someone if I felt it was justifiable, I'm sure of it. Maybe many people."
His younger brother clung suddenly to him. "I'd kill someone for you too."
Lelouch smiled easily. "I'm touched, Rolo. Well, at the end of the day talking is just talking…who knows if either of us actually could do it. And I hope to God that you'll never need to."
An ambiguous murmur of agreement issued from somewhere beneath him.
"At the risk of embracing an already well-worn cliché…well, first I need to make that moment, don't I? I need a catalyst…Anyway, enough of all this sentimental talk of heroism." He pulled away, frowning at some private thought.
Rolo touched his arm cautiously. "Wait, you owe me a proper hug now. That half-hearted murder attempt from earlier doesn't count."
"You and your hugs," came the grumbling acquiescence. "I swear in your previous incarnation you must have been a girl. A girl that made me look after you and take you everywhere and whatnot."
He let out an exaggerated sigh, his second of the evening, and pulled Rolo impatiently towards him. "Happy?"
For someone who lacked strength in their legs to the point where a light jog became life-threatening, Lelouch had reassuringly strong arms. They were the sort of arms that, when wrapped around you just like this, seemed like they could pull you into the body of the owner so that you would actually be assimilated into them. There was a reassuring weight where his brother's chin rested on the back of his head, and his own arms were entwined tightly around his slender back so that as much of their torsos were in contact as possible. For a few seconds they breathed as one, and he closed his eyes.
"So is the cheesy bonding time over yet?"
"I…just need a moment longer."
Face pressed into his brother's chest, Rolo opened his eyes and the bird-shape of the Geass lit his eye a brilliant purple. Lelouch's breathing did not waver, for Rolo's Geass only halted conscious actions, but his body slumped just a little, the shape of Rolo against him holding it in place. For one long moment Rolo was able to gaze unseen into his brother's eyes, a moment that he held for as long as he dared: this time, eleven beats of Lelouch's heart. He felt each one thud against him and fade away.
He buried himself back into his brother's chest and released the Geass, heart jolting back into life with treacherous surprise as it hastened to catch up with Lelouche's. Even though he knew that he wasn't really stopping time - that it was not really he that gained time but rather others that lost it, he told himself that this moment was something that he had seized and had kept close in the form of memory, and thus could not be defined primarily in terms of loss.
His older brother's face unfroze itself and for an instant a puzzled frown twitched Lelouch's mouth downward. Then he moved his gaze away from the clock on the mantlepiece, and down towards someone who was threatening to become a long-term occupant of his lap.
"You know I charge for these, right? And that was quite a long one."
Rolo could hear the triumph in his own voice, but suppressing it did not seem to be an option. "I still think it went more quickly for you than me."
"Well, if it's that tedious, then get off."
And the warmth around Rolo abruptly faded as, in a tragic plot-twist, Lelouch's arms were returned to their rightful owner.
"So is that it for tonight? I hear that people are queuing outside just to look at my face." He heaved his final sarcastic sigh of the evening. "Just wait, Rolo. I'll have people chanting my name yet."
A loyal, if brief, smile, and then the younger brother clambered off the sofa. "Are we cooking together again tonight?"
Lelouch attempted an elegant shrug, but found the demand too paradoxical to hope for success. "Why not? Neither of us are going anywhere."
Rolo's smile, slightly wan this time, was hidden as he turned towards the mantelpiece. "I hope not. Ah, and I need to…borrow these batteries for the cordless phone. If landline calls to mobiles are free, it makes sense to use it."
Lelouch hesitated for a fraction before replying. "Go ahead…although it's useful to be able to keep track of time while watching television in here, so I might buy some spare batteries anyway."
"That's a good idea." His brother managed to unclench his teeth before speaking, but his fingers clenched tightly over the batteries in his hand.
"I'm full of good ideas." With a knowing smirk (but knowing what? Rolo wondered) LeLouche strode off into the kitchen. His younger brother stood still for a few moments, then turned off the lounge light and ran after him.